Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks—a Cool History of a Hot Commodity

Brady (coeditor, The World as We Knew It), the executive director of Orion magazine, offers a vibrant history of America’s “obsession” with ice. She begins her survey with Frederic Tudor, who launched the “American ice trade” in 1806 by harvesting ice from a Massachusetts lake and sailing it to the Caribbean. Among other innovations, Tudor designed a cargo hold that reduced melting by “keeping the ice elevated and as sealed off from air as possible” and created a demand for his product in Cuba by offering “several pounds of ice to competitive baristas for free, on the condition that they’d allow him to demonstrate how best to serve their drinks chilled.” Physician John Gorrie demonstrated his ice-making machine at a Bastille Day party in Florida in 1850, and by 1920, nearly 5,000 block-ice plants were “churning out over 40 million tons of ice per year,” leading the way for ice to become an essential aspect of American life, from home kitchens to hospitals and hockey arenas. Brady also delves into more troubling aspects of the national love affair with ice, noting that refrigerators release 60 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. Overflowing with intriguing arcana and colorful personalities, this is an eye-opener. Photos. (June)